Building certainty where we can

This year’s Microsoft Inspire opening remarks by Gavriella Schuster, left a resonating sentence that’s still with us after more than a month has gone by: “when there is uncertainty you build certainty where you can”. Right now, there has not been a time in which there has been more uncertainty of what the future entails and how we can prepare for it. Nonetheless, the wheel of time keeps turning and the future is already here.

Even before the pandemic started, there was already a cloud of uncertainty ahead after the slowdown of growth in late 2018. Businesses CEO’s were already expecting this 2020 to be a challenging year to keep growing.

In this year’s PWC Annual Global CEO Survey, (that took place late 2019 before COVID-19) marked a record in pessimism, in extreme contrast with 2018 that marked the opposite record, as optimism for growth that year was 57%. The result for 2020: only a mere 22%, the lowest point since 2009. The percentage of CEO’s that believe global GDP to decline, has increased from 5% to 53% in the past two years. Seems like those CEO’s “Animal Spirits” were onto something.

In their recent book “Radical Uncertainty”, Mervin King and John Kay define the term as “the result of our incomplete knowledge of the world”, and emphasize the vast range of possibilities that lie between unlikely events that, nonetheless, are possible and the realm of things we cannot even imagine.

“A world of uncertain futures and unpredictable consequences”

So, in the face of uncertainty, how do we continue to look ahead and plan when scenarios could change overnight? This is where we keep going back to the main idea: Build certainty where you can.

People

Nurturing and retaining talent are one of the ways you can build certainty while looking ahead. To sustain and increase their rate of growth a company needs the best professionals in their teams and the speed of change requires CEO’s to see training as an ongoing process. Each time more upskilling and well-being programs set out to address mental health and soft skills realize that these should be considered anything but soft, but rather hold the potential to catalyze or inhibit other more technical and needed skills.

Security

There isn’t a businessperson that does not constantly worry about the security of their company’s data, the integrity of the systems set up in place, and the need to constantly review them to accommodate needed changes as fast as possible. Reviewing your security protocols, especially as hybrid workplaces become the norm, will build certainty and trust.

Uncertainty as Opportunity

The challenges these times bring, can and should be reframed as opportunities to take a closer look at the systems set up in place surrounding business yes, but also all other areas of life.

IT Service Providers

Your solutions provider should always make your life easier, not more complicated. The apps and solutions you set in place should make communications and processes more aligned, not more disjointed. If you are not satisfied with a service, if a solution has generated more issues than solutions, do not settle. Our raison d’etre is to serve you. Without our clients, we can’t fulfill our mission of driving value through IT. So, if we can help you in any way, don’t hesitate to reach out. If we can, we will just ask.

These are just a few ways in which action can be taken towards improving stability in times of uncertainty. However, the real key to achieving this is the mindset with which we face each crisis. Learning through them, with the right tools, human resources, and strategic allies, can provide the right elements towards overcoming and even, learning to thrive and grow from adversity.